#a very happy birthday to our beloved jiang cheng

[whuanyin]

Happy birthday Jiang Cheng!!!

[antiquecompass]

Tea Parties and Surprises

Wherein it’s Jin Ling’s birthday. Like uncle, like nephew.

This is not how Jin Ling intended to spend his twenty-second birthday. 

Not that he didn’t enjoy being the guest of honor at his baby sister’s tea party, having usurped the throne from Mr. Elephant, but as much as he loved and adored every hair on Xiuying’s little head, she was not his intended date for today.

“Are we boring you?” she asked, a perfect imitation of Madame Jin.

“I was merely in awe of all the treats before us,” he said.

Their fellow guests may be stuffed animals, and the ‘tea’ just plain water, but the cookies were real and had been baked under the watchful eye of their father. Xiuying loved baking and was already demanding, at the age of six, to be taught how to make things like eclairs. Father was more than happy to indulge her and they took many ‘field trips’ to Mother’s restaurants to watch the pastry chefs work. 

He reached for a cookie and had his hand slapped.

“Not yet,” she said.

“But it’s my birthday,” he argued.

Xiuying shook her head, pigtails bouncing. “Not yet. Our last guest has to arrive.”

He looked around the room. Mr. Elephant, Happy the Honeybee, Owly, and Eyeore were all present. 

“Who is it?” he asked.

“A surprise,” Xiuying said. “A birthday surprise!”

Jin Ling suddenly felt that paranoid fear that Uncle Wuxian was lurking around the corner with a cake to smash in his face. He was <i>supposed</i> to be in the Berkshires watching his granddaughter, but Jin Ling put nothing past that devious bastard. He would drive three hours just for a practical joke, little Meihui strapped to his chest for the whole thing, exposing such a young, innocent child to his evil sense of humor. 

He heard a door open and braced himself.

“Miss Jin, my apologies for being late to your most illustrious tea party.”

And his jaw dropped. He whipped around. “Zizhen?” he asked.

“Habibi,” Zizhen said, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “I must greet our host first, forgive me.”

He took Xiuying’s hand and raised it for a kiss, while bowing like Prince fucking Charming himself. “Miss Jin,” he said. He then bowed to their stuffed animal fellows. “Other gathered guests.” He then turned to Jin Ling and raised his hand for a kiss as well. “Habibi.”

My beloved. One of the few Arabic words and phrases Jin Ling knew by heart. It had been one of the only things Mrs. Ouyang had insisted on when she agreed to marry Zizhen’s father: her children would be raised in her religion and with her native language. Jin Ling had only seen glimpses of it throughout the years, Zizhen keeping some things very close to his chest, but since that day, Jin Ling had finally been privy to this side of Zizhen.

“I thought you had a meeting you couldn’t skip today,” Jin Ling said. 

“And so I did,” Zizhen said, somehow gracefully folding his body into the tiny chair. He took up one of the pink, glittery cloth napkins and laid it over his lap. “You see, two months ago I received a very important call asking for my presence to attend a specific tea party. My host insisted it was the only thing her beloved brother would want for his birthday. I could not refuse the engagement.”

Jin Ling looked at his youngest sibling who smiled at him from behind her tea cup.

“She was right.”

Zizhen took his hand, interlacing their fingers, and smiled. “You better watch out for this one. She’s going to take over the world.”

“Thank you,” Xiuying said, preening at the praise.

**********

The problem with dating someone who was universally loved by his entire family was that it made it impossible to get out the door. All he wanted to do was to get Zizhen back to his apartment, to himself, but someone had clearly sent out a mass text, because almost everyone had come to his parents’ house to greet him.

“It’s your party and you can pout if you want to,” Yawen said. She slapped his arm. “Don’t worry, birthday boy, we know he’s all yours.”

“It’s been almost a month,” Jin Ling complained.

Yawen laughed and tugged on his ponytail. “Patience, young peacock.”

Yazu, his other twin sister, joined them. She’d flown up for the weekend, a decision he was sure she regretted so near to finals. 

“Why did I want to go to Vet School again?” she asked, leaning into her twin’s side. “Why couldn’t have gone into business like you?”

“Because you hate business meetings,” Yawen said.

“How is the application process going?” he asked. Yawen was already down at NC State majoring in zoology, but the Vet School was famously selective and difficult to get into. 

She shrugged. “I have the grades, the job experience, and the glowing recommendations. All I can do is hope for the best. If I don’t get State, I’m trying for Cornell and Ohio. If I don’t get those, I’ll take a year off and try again.”

Yazu was the most practical of all of them, and the most like their mother in temperment. 

Yawen tugged on his hair again. “Your boyfriend finally broke free from Kai’s hold. I’d grab him and run.”

Jin Ling didn’t need to be told twice.

They nearly knocked over Chao trying to get out of the house, but his brother just tossed a gift bag at him and told them to run.

“If you weren’t so fucking polite, we wouldn’t have to do this,” Jin Ling said as they finally slowed down, having hit the Common. 

“I like your family,” Zizhen said. He wrapped his arm around Jin Ling’s waist and pulled him close. “I will admit, even I was eager to get away from them tonight.”

Jin Ling felt the blush on his cheeks and tried to fight it off. “Still not over the thrill of getting to fuck an Olympic gold medalist on the regular?” he teased.

“As if I’ll ever get over the thrill of having you,” Zizhen said. 

How the fuck did he just say things like that, and mean them, and still sound so genuine and smooth?

“Though you did make quite a sight wearing nothing but that gold medal,” Zizhen said.

“Care for a reenactment?” Jin Ling asked, dragging them towards the Park Street T entrance. 

“It was a show worthy of a repeat performance,” Zizhen agreed. 

He stopped them right before they hit the stairs. It was too cold outside to linger, especially since they’d left their coats at his parents’ house, but Zizhen’s hands were warm on his skin, and his lips were warmer as they took Jin Ling’s own.

“Happy Birthday,” he said. 

Jin Ling had resigned himself to spending this day with his family only. His best friends were still wrapped up in relatively new parenthood and Zizhen had apologized profusely, for two months now, about having to be absent today. It had been a good day before now, he would’ve still enjoyed it without Zizhen, but having him here was absolutely the icing on top of this particular birthday cake.

And the night wasn’t over yet.

Back at his apartment, Jin Ling was surprised to see an entire table of presents and a cake.

Zizhen grinned at him. “Your youngest sister may not have been the only one with ideas. I had a plan of my own, and your family helped.” He tapped the bag in Jin Ling’s hand. “You might want to put that down first. I’ll be right back.”

Zizhen disappeared into his apartment, leaving Jin Ling baffled in the living room. He walked over to the stack of presents and froze.

A dog bed. Toys. Treats. He looked inside the bag in his hands. A leash.

He’d confessed to Zizhen four months ago that he was finally willing to adopt another dog, the pain of losing Fairy finally fading enough for him to allow himself to look for another companion. But he’d been frustrated because, well, he hadn’t looked for Fairy. She’d been a gift from someone who loved him. He remembered blurting out that he’d wished someone would just do it again, to take all the pressure off him. He hadn’t been completely serious, but apparently Zizhen had.

Zizhen returned with a ball of squirming white fluff in his hands.

“I know she’s not a husky,” Zizhen said. “But Uncle Cheng approved of this choice and found the breeder for me.”

“What?” Jin Ling said as he instinctively opened his arms to hold the Samoyed puppy. “I? What?”

He was going to cry. He was already crying. 

“Oh,” he said as the puppy started to lick his face.

He let Zizhen guide him to the couch, help him sit down, and felt a kiss pressed to his hairline as Jin Ling still clung on to the puppy.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed <i>this</i>.

“It’s too much,” Jin Ling said. He laughed. “I don’t think I can handle anymore surprises tonight.”

Zizhen hummed into his hair, one of his hands rubbing the puppy’s head. “Good surprises though.”

“The best,” Jin Ling said.

Zizhen was the only one who knew how lonely Jin Ling had been feeling in the drop from the high of the Olympics. He still had archery, competitions and endorsements and the like, but he had cut back on the hours to rest his body. He didn’t have school, since he never intended to go to Grad School. He’d given his place in Jiang Industries over to Yawen with all of his family’s blessing. He’d been listless for awhile, just existing in a way, stuck in a sort of holding pattern. 

“I’m coming back to the States,” Zizhen said. “At least for most of the year. I’ll have to be in Rhode Island, but it’s still closer than London.”

“I could live in Rhode Island,” Jin Ling said. 

“Are you sure?” Zizhen asked. “We’ve only been--”

“Shut the fuck up,” Jin Ling said, as he always did when Zizhen got worried they were moving too fast. “Besides, Daisy needs a yard to run in.”

“Daisy?” Zizhen asked.

“Daisy,” Jin Ling confirmed as he kissed the top of the puppy’s head. He leaned back into Zizhen’s arms. “I really did want you to fuck me hard enough to break something tonight, but I don’t think I can let her go right now.”

“There’s always tomorrow.”

And there would be. A whole slew of tomorrows.